July 26, 1999
An Electronic Nose?
| A device that would test remedies for bad breath without requiring
the intrepid halitosis researcher to actually put his or her nose to a
patient’s mouth. A microwave oven that knows when food is cooked.
Fire fighting equipment that can tell the chemical composition of what
is burning. A device that can tell a dairy farmer when a cow is in
heat and ready for artificial insemination. All of these and more
are possible applications of a new technology being developed by the felicitously-
named Cyrano Sciences, a California
start-up based on an idea of Caltech chemist Nathan Lewis.
Cyranose 2000, a $5,000 device which is set for test-marketing this fall, incorporates a ceramic chip with an 32 sensors. Each sensor is made of different polymer embedded with electrically-conducting particles. When the polymers absorb odor molecules they expand and their electrical resistance, which can be measured, increases. Because the polymers respond differently, each odor produces a characteristic electronic fingerprint. Test markets will include quality control of raw material concentrates in the food industry and detection of “off” odors in packaging materials. -- Source: Ilan
Greenberg, “A Nose for Business,” Technology Review, July/August 1999.
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Links:HomeAroma Scan (a competing firm in the U.K.)
NOSE (Network on artificial Olfactory Sensing) -- Everything you always wanted to know about electronic noses.
"The Electronic Nose Knows," Gene Koprowski, Wired News, May 4, 1998.
Archived Usenet posting including an article on Cyrano Sciences from The Economist, September 5, 1998.
Tim Jacobs's page on the physiology of smell and olfaction.
List of links to olfaction studies.